The Whistleblower

This tension-filled political thriller based on actual events revolves around a U.N. peacekeeper who discovers that friends and colleagues are involved in sex-trafficking in postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina. The story begins in 1999, when struggling Nebraska cop/single mother Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) is lured by the promise of $100,000 (tax-free) for a six-month tour of duty with Democra Security, a private contractor that hires U.S. police officers and dispatches them around the world. Working at the U.N.'s Women's Rights and Gender Office, Bolkovac discovers two Ukrainian girls who were duped into traveling to Bosnia—ostensibly to work in a Swiss hotel—and subsequently forced into a brothel. One terrified teen (Roxana Condurache) agrees to testify against her kidnappers and dishonest U.N. workers who are complicit in the criminal atrocities, but she's abducted a second time, leaving Bolkovac alone to assemble documented evidence against fellow employees. Despite the support of Human Rights Commission diplomat Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave) and Internal Affairs agent Peter Ward (David Strathairn), Bolkovac's crusading investigation of the male-dominated U.S. State Department cover-up is blocked by Democra and sneering U.N. officials who treat females as second-class citizens. Director Larysa Kondracki doesn't flinch from depicting brutal authenticity, and Weisz is terrific as Bolkovac (who now lives in the Netherlands with her husband, a U.N. investigator she met in Bosnia). Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a segment on “Kathy Bolkovac: The Real Whistleblower” (6 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a solid true thriller.] (S. Granger)